Processing facilities are often managed using process control systems. Example processing facilities include manufacturing plants, chemical plants, crude oil refineries, and ore processing plants. Among other operations, process control systems typically manage the use of motors, valves, and other industrial equipment in the processing facilities.
In conventional process control systems, controllers are often used to control the operation of the industrial equipment in the processing facilities. The controllers could, for example, monitor the operation of the industrial equipment, provide control signals to the industrial equipment, and generate alarms or other notifications when malfunctions or other problems are detected. These controllers often use models to generate the control signals, where the models define how the control signals are generated based on input signals received by the controllers. In many conventional process control systems, outputs of the controller models are viewed by human operators, who monitor the outputs in an attempt to identify problems in the process control system.